Research Catalog

A Jewish mother from Berlin : a novel ; Susanna : a novella

Title: A Jewish mother from Berlin : a novel ; Susanna : a novella / Gertrud Kolmar ; translated from the German by Brigitte M. Goldstein.
Author: Kolmar, Gertrud, 1894-1943?
Publication: New York : Holmes & Meier, 1997.

Filter by

Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	PT2605.H54 A4 1997	Off-site

Additional Authors

Goldstein, Brigitte.

Description

202 pages; 22 cm.

Summary

In A Jewish Mother from Berlin, Martha Jadassohn's seemingly conventional life plunges into chaos after a brutal attack on her only child. As Martha assumes the self-imposed mission of combing Berlin for the man who raped five-year-old Ursa, she encounters Berlin's staid and seamy sides - a world peopled with working-class weekend gardeners, middle-class cultural snobs, transvestites, a former Spanish dancer turned hostess with a secret, and a Jewish lawyer who clings rigidly to the rule of law.
During her harrowing quest, Martha becomes obsessed with a handsome, shallow "Aryan" type in a relationship that intensifies her solitude and alienation. Kolmar peels away the layers of Martha's outward restraint to bare the soul of a woman slowly shattered by a callous society in which Jews are outcasts and women preyed upon.
Another heroine on a quest for love and self-expression propels the lyrical novella Susanna, a finely wrought psychological portrait of an outsider. The ethereally beautiful Susanna sets out on a tragic search for her lost lover, only to find herself floundering in a world where everyone's perceptions clash with her own.

Series Statement

Modern German voices series

Uniform Title

Alternative Title

Subjects

ISBN

0841913455 (alk. paper)

LCCN

96054584

OCLC

ocm36165223

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries